By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy & Tuppence 4)

'Is that the way you like it, Mrs Beresford?' ' 'Yes, thank you,' said Tuppence. 'It's very comfortable.' 'I'm sorry to hear -' his voice had a vague charm to it, though it had some elements of a ghostlike voice, far-away, lacking in resonance, yet with a curious depth - 'about your accident,' he said. 'It's so sad nowadays - all the accidents there are.' His eyes were wandering over her face and she thought to herself, 'He's making just as much a study of me as I made of him.' She gave a sharp half-glance at Tommy, but Tommy was talking to Emma Boscowan.

'What made you come to Sutton Chancellor in the first place, Mrs Beresford?' 'Oh, we're looking for a house in the country in a vague sort of way,' said Tuppence. 'My husband was away-from home attending some congress or other and I thought I'd have a tour round a likely part of the countryside - just to see what there was going, and the kind of price one would have to pay, you kI1oW.'

'I hear you went and looked at the house by the canal bridge?'

'Yes, I did. I believe I'd once noticed it from the train. It's a very attractive-looking house - from the outside.'

'Yes. I should imagine, though, that even the outside needs a great deal doing to it, to the roof and things like that. Not so attractive on the wrong side, is it?'

'No, it seems to me a curious way to divide up a house.'

'Oh well,' said Philip Starke, 'people have different ideas, don't they?'

'You never lived in it, did you?' asked Tuppence.

'No, no, indeed. My house was burnt down many years ago.

There's part of it left still. I expect you've seen it or had it pointed out to you. It's above this vicarage, you know, a bit up the hill. At least what they call a hill in this part of the world.

It was never much to boast of. My father built it way back in 1890 or so. A proud mansion. Gothic overlays, a touch of Balmoral. Our architects nowadays rather admire that kind of thing again, though actually forty years ago it was shuddered at. It had everything a so-called gentleman's house ought to have.' His voice was gently ironic. 'A billiard room, a morning room, ladies' parlour, colossal dining-room, a ballroom, about fourteen bedrooms, and once had - or so I should imagine - a staff of fourteen servants to look after it.'

'You sound as though you never liked it much yourself.'

'I never did. I was a disappointment to my father. He was a very successful industrialist. He hoped I would follow in his footsteps. I didn't. He treated me very well. He gave me a large income, or allowance - as it used to be called - and let me go my own way.'

'I heard you were a botanist.'

'Well, that was one of my great relaxations. I used to go looking for wild flowers, especially in the Balkans. Have you ever been to the Balkans looking for wild flowers? It's a wonderful place for them.'

'It sounds very attractive. Then you used to come back and live here?' 'I haven't lived here for a great many years now. In fact, I've never been back to live here since my wife died.'

'Oh,' said Tuppence, slightly embarrassed. 'Oh, I'm - I'm 'It's quite a long time ago now. She died before the war. In 1938. She was a very beautiful woman,' he said.

'Do you have pictures of her in your house here still?'

'Oh no, the house is empty. All the furniture, pictures and things were sent away to be stored. There's just a bedroom and an office and a sitting-room where my agent comes, or I come if I have to come down here and see to any estate business.' 'It's never been sold?'

'No. There's some talk of having a development of the land there. I don't know. Not that I have any feeling for it. My father hoped that he was starting a kind of feudal domain. I was to succeed him and my children were to succeed me and so on and so on and so on.' He paused a minute and said then, 'But Julia and I never had any children.'

'Oh,' said Tuppence softly, 'I see.'

'So there's nothing to come here for. In fact I hardly ever do.

Anything that needs to be done here Nellie Bligh does for me.' He smiled over at her. 'She's been the most wonderful secretary. She still attends to my business affairs or anything of that kind.'

'You never come here and yet you don't want to sell it?' said Tuppence.

'There's a very good reason why not,' said Philip Starke.

A faint smile passed over the austere features.

'Perhaps after all I do inherit some of my father's business sense. The land, you know, is improving enormously in value.

It's a better investment than money would be, if I sold it.

Appreciates every day. Some day, who knows, we'll have a grand new dormitory town built on that land.'

'Then you'll be rich?'

'Then I'll be an even richer man than I am at present,' said

Sir Philip. 'And I'm quite rich enough.'

'What do you do most of the time?'

'I travel, and I have interests in London. I have a picture 2OO gallery there. I'm by way of being an art dealer. All those things are interesting. They occupy one's time - till the moment when the hand is laid on your shoulder which says "Depart".' 'Don't,' said Tuppence. 'That sounds - it gives me the shivers.' 'It needn't give you the shivers. I think you're going to have a long life, Mrs Beresford, and a very happy one.' 'WeLl, I'm very happy at present,' said Tuppence. 'I suppose I shall get all the aches and pains and troubles that old people do get. Deaf and blind and arthritis and a few other things.' 'You probably won't mind them as much as you think you will iF i may say so, without being rude, you and your husband seem to have a very happy life together.' 'Oh, we have,' said Tuppence. 'I suppose really,' she said, 'there's nothing in life like being happily married, is there?' A moment later she wished she had not uttered these words.

//eeen she looked at the man opposite her, who she felt had ved for so many years and indeed might still be grieving for the loss of a very much loved wife, she felt even more angry with berseff.

CHAPTER 16 The Morning After

It was the morning after the party.

Ivor Smith and Tommy paused in their conversation and looked at each other, then they looked at Tuppence. Tuppence was staring into the grate. Her mind looked far away.

'Where have

we got to?' said Tommy.

With a sigh Tuppence came back from where her thoughts had been wandering, and looked at the two men.

'It seems all tied up still to me,' she said. 'The party last night? What was it for? What did it all mean?' She looked at Ivor Smith. 'I suppose it meant something to you two. You know where we are?' 'I wouldn't go as far as that,' said Ivor. 'We're not all after the same thing, are we?' 'Not quite,' said Tuppence.

The men both looked at her inquiringly.

'All right,' said Tuppence. 'I'm a woman with an obsession. I want to find Mrs Lancaster. I want to be sure that she's all right.' 'You want to find Mrs Johnson first,' said Tommy. 'You'll never £md Mrs Lancaster till you £md Mrs Johnson.' 'Mrs Johnson,' said Tuppence. 'Yes, I wonder - But I suppose none of that part of it interests you,' she said to Ivor Smith.